Deodorizing Underwear: Why Does Japan Get All the Cool Stuff?











Soon, silent but deadly will just be … silent. At least, that’s the promise a Japanese company is making about its line of deodorizing underwear, which has reportedly become a hit among Japanese businessmen.


Seiren, the company behind the Deoest underwear line, says it has been working on the garments for a few years. The deodorizing power comes from odor-absorbing ceramic particles that are incorporated into the fibers of the underwear. Though Sieren says the garments were originally developed for those suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, Deoest has quickly gained popularity among Japanese businessmen.


Following the success of the underwear, the company added an array of other odor-eliminating undergarments for other oft-smelly body parts, including socks and undershirts.


via PhysOrg






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Petraeus enlisted for cameo in ‘Call of Duty’ game
















LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Petraeus has landed on his feet with a new gig in “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”


The retired Army general who stepped down as CIA director last week amid a scandal surrounding his extramarital affair pops up in the highly anticipated Activision Blizzard Inc. first-person shooter game released Tuesday.













A character with Petraeus’ name and likeness voiced by Jim Meskimen briefly appears as the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025.


The cameo was first reported by the gaming site Kotaku.com.


“Call of Duty” games have often employed virtual renditions of political figures.


“Black Ops II” also features an encounter with Manuel Noriega, a female president resembling current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, an aircraft carrier named the USS Barack Obama and an appearance by retired Lt. Col. Oliver North.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Kidney Donors Given Mandatory Safeguards


ST. LOUIS — Addressing long-held concerns about whether organ donors have adequate protections, the country’s transplant regulators acted late Monday to require that hospitals thoroughly inform living kidney donors of the risks they face, fully evaluate their medical and psychological suitability, and then track their health for two years after donation.


Enactment of the policies by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant system under a federal contract, followed six years of halting development and debate.


Meeting at a St. Louis hotel, the group’s board voted to establish uniform minimum standards for a field long regarded as a medical and ethical Wild West. The organ network, whose initial purpose was to oversee donation from people who had just died, has struggled at times to keep pace with rapid developments in donations from the living.


“There is no question that this is a major development in living donor protection,” said Dr. Christie P. Thomas, a nephrologist at the University of Iowa and the chairman of the network’s living donor committee.


Yet some donor advocates complained that the measures did not go far enough, and argued that the organ network, in its mission to encourage transplants, has a conflict of interest when it comes to safeguarding donors.


Three years ago, the network issued some of the same policies as voluntary guidelines, only to have the Department of Health and Human Services insist they be made mandatory.


Although long-term data on the subject is scarce, few living kidney donors are thought to suffer lasting physical or psychological effects. Kidney donations, known as nephrectomies, are typically done laparoscopically these days through a series of small incisions. The typical patient may spend only a few nights in a hospital and feel largely recovered after several months.


Kidneys are by far the most transplanted organs, and there have been nearly as many living donors as deceased ones over the last decade. What data is available suggests that those with one kidney typically live as long as those with two, and that the risk of a donor dying during the procedure is roughly 3 in 10,000.


But kidney transplants, like all surgery, can sometimes end in catastrophe.


In May at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, a 41-year-old mother of three died when her aorta was accidentally cut during surgery to donate a kidney to her brother. In other recent isolated cases, patients have received donor kidneys infected with undetected H.I.V. or hepatitis C.


Less clear are any longer-term effects on donors. Research conducted by the United Network for Organ Sharing shows that of roughly 70,000 people who donated kidneys between late 1999 and early 2011, 27 died within two years of medical causes that may — or may not — have been related to donation. For a small number of donors, their remaining kidney failed, and they required dialysis or a transplant.


The number of living donors — 5,770 in 2011 — has dropped 10 percent over the last two years, possibly because the struggling economy has made it difficult for prospective donors to take time off from work to recuperate. With the national kidney waiting list now stretching past 94,000 people, and thousands on the list dying each year, transplant officials have said they must improve confidence in the system so more people will donate.


The average age of donors has been rising, posing additional medical risks. And new ethical questions have been raised by the emergence of paired kidney exchanges and transplant chains started by good Samaritans who give an organ to a stranger.


Brad Kornfeld, who donated a kidney to his father in 2004, told the board that it had been impossible to find good information about what to expect, leaving him to search for answers on unreliable Internet chat rooms. He said he had almost backed out.


“If information is power,” said Mr. Kornfeld, a Coloradan who serves on the living donor committee, “the lack of information is crippling.”


Under the policies approved this week, the organ network will require hospitals to collect medical data, including laboratory test results, on most living donors to study lasting effects. Results must be reported at six months, one year and two years.


Similar regulations have been in place since 2000, but they did not require blood and urine testing, and hospitals were allowed to report donors who could not be found as simply lost.


That happened often. In recent years, hospitals have submitted basic clinical information — like whether donors were alive or dead — for only 65 percent of donors and lab data for fewer than 40 percent, according to the organ network. Although the network holds the authority, no hospital has ever been seriously sanctioned for noncompliance.


“It’s time we put some teeth into our policy,” said Jill McMaster, a board member from Tennessee.


By 2015, transplant programs will have to report thorough clinical information on at least 80 percent of donors and lab results on at least 70 percent. The requirements phase in at lower levels for the next two years.


Dr. Stuart M. Flechner of the Cleveland Clinic, the chairman of a coalition of medical societies that made recommendations to the organ network, said 9 of 10 hospitals would currently not meet the new requirement.


Donna Luebke, a kidney donor from Ohio who once served on the organ network’s board, said the new standards would matter only if enforcement were more rigorous. She noted that the organization was dominated by transplant doctors: “UNOS is nothing but the foxes watching the henhouse,” she said.


Another of the new regulations prescribes in detail the medical and psychological screenings that hospitals must conduct for potential donors. It requires automatic exclusion if the potential donor has diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension or H.I.V., among other conditions.


The new policies also require that hospitals appoint an independent advocate to counsel and represent donors, and that donors receive detailed information in advance about medical, psychological and financial risks.


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At Microsoft, Sinofsky Seen as Smart but Abrasive





On a warm night in late October, Steven Sinofsky stood on a platform in New York’s Times Square, smiling as a huge crowd roared at the unveiling of a Microsoft retail store, where Windows 8 and the company’s new Surface tablet were about to go on sale.




Less than three weeks later, Mr. Sinofsky — who, as the head of Windows, was arguably the second-most important leader at Microsoft — suddenly left the company. His abrasive style was a source of discord within Microsoft, and he and Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, agreed that it was time for him to leave, according to a person briefed on the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.


Mr. Sinofsky was widely admired for his effectiveness in running one of the biggest and most important software development organizations on the planet. But his departure, which Microsoft announced late on Monday, parallels in many respects that of Scott Forstall, the headstrong former head of Apple’s mobile software development, who was fired by Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in late October.


Both cases underscore a quandary that chief executives sometimes face: when do the costs of keeping brilliant leaders who cannot seem to get along with others outweigh the benefits?


The tipping point that led to Mr. Sinofsky’s departure came after an accumulation of run-ins with Mr. Ballmer and other company leaders, rather than a single incident, according to interviews with several current and former Microsoft executives who declined to be named discussing internal matters.


One example of the kind of behavior that hurt Mr. Sinofsky’s standing at the company occurred this year at a two-day retreat for Microsoft’s senior executives at the Semiahmoo resort on the coast just below the Canadian border in Washington State. At the meeting, Microsoft’s various division heads were expected to make presentations on their businesses, answer questions and remain to hear their peers repeat the exercise.


When Mr. Sinofsky stood on the first day to speak about the Windows division, he told the group he had not prepared a presentation, and if they wanted to catch up on the progress of Windows 8, they could read his company blog, where he publicly chronicled the software’s development. He answered questions from the audience and then left the resort, while his colleagues remained until the next day, according to multiple people who were present.


Mr. Sinofsky’s early exit and halfhearted presentation were widely noted by his colleagues, irking even his admirers in the company. “He lost a lot of support,” one attendee said.


It wasn’t until this Monday, though, that Mr. Sinofsky and Mr. Ballmer both decided it would be best if Mr. Sinofsky left. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, supported the move, a person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Sinofsky served as a technical assistant to Mr. Gates in the 1990s.


In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, Mr. Sinofsky said the decision to leave “was a personal and private choice.” Many surprised Microsoft insiders noted that Mr. Sinofsky’s departure was immediate, an unusual arrangement for someone with a 23-year track record at the company. A Microsoft spokesman, Frank Shaw, said Mr. Sinofsky was not available to comment.


Although Mr. Ballmer grew increasingly impatient with Mr. Sinofsky throughout the year, he held back from taking any action earlier to avoid disrupting the release of Windows 8, the most important product Microsoft has unveiled in years, a person with knowledge of his thinking said.


The final decision could not have come lightly. Although many people at Microsoft viewed him as a ruthless corporate schemer, Mr. Sinofsky ran the highly complex organization responsible for Windows as a disciplined army that met deadlines, and he was respected by people on his team.


He achieved hero status within Microsoft several years ago by taking over the leadership of Windows after the debacle that was Windows Vista, a much-delayed operating system whose sluggish performance and technical problems worsened Microsoft’s reputation for mediocre software. Mr. Sinfosky led the development of a new version of the operating system, Windows 7, which was positively reviewed and sold well.


“He did great things with Windows,” said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That’s still the core of the company.”


But while Mr. Sinofsky was effective, Mr. Cusumano said, he could be secretive and difficult to get along with, as he learned while dealing with Mr. Sinofsky while Mr. Cusumano was writing a book on Microsoft in the early 1990s. “I could imagine that he burned a lot of bridges and created a bunch of enemies,” he said.


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Prescription deaths: Lawmaker wants cases reported to Medical Board









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The chairman of a state Senate committee that oversees the Medical Board said Monday he would introduce a bill requiring coroners to report all prescription drug deaths to the agency — a move aimed at helping authorities identify doctors whose prescribing practices may be harming patients.

Sen. Curren D. Price Jr., responding to a Times' report that authorities have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed by their doctors, said the medical board needed coroners reports to improve oversight of potentially dangerous practices.

“There appears to be a disconnect between coroners and the Medical Board,” Price (D-Los Angeles), said in an interview. “Hopefully legislation will tighten that up and provide the kind of accountability we all expect.”

FULL COVERAGE: Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

The Times investigation published Sunday found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor's prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.

The investigation identified 3,733 deaths that involved prescription drugs in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties from 2006 through 2011. In 1,762 of those cases — 47% — drugs for which the deceased had a prescription were the sole cause or a contributing cause of death.

The Times found that prescription drug deaths often involved multiple drugs, sometimes prescribed by more than one doctor. In some cases, the deceased also mixed prescribed drugs with illegal drugs, alcohol or both.

The paper identified 71 Southern California physicians who prescribed drugs to three or more patients who later fatally overdosed. The doctors were primarily pain specialists, general practitioners and psychiatrists.

Price said that although there may be legitimate reasons for a doctor's prescriptions being linked to a death, “it’s cause for some further review.”

“I think a red flag goes up any time you have one [doctor] involved in several deaths,” he said. “And I think an investigation is not only warranted but called upon by the public.”





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Microsoft Gives Windows 8 Chief the Boot










Microsoft isn’t just changing up its software, it’s revamping leadership. In a release Monday evening, Microsoft announced the departure of Steven Sinofsky, the chief architect of its newly launched Windows 8 operating system.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer played it diplomatically. “I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company,” Ballmer said in the release. “The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft.”


It’s an era that apparently will continue without Sinofsky. The long-time Microsoft veteran was often praised for his ability to bring complex, massive software projects together. Windows 8 was his latest effort. But he was also criticized as someone who didn’t bring people together in a company that desperately needs to bring a unified approach to its technology if it is to compete effectively with Apple and Google.


Sinofsky played it chummy in his own comments. “It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft,” he said.


Julie Larson-Green is being promoted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering. Larson-Green worked on the user experience of early versions of Internet Explorer, as well as the revamped design of the company’s cash-cow Office. She also played significant roles in Windows 7 and Windows 8 releases, responsible for program management, user interface design and research, as all international releases.




Michael V. Copeland is a senior editor at WIRED, where he focuses on all things related to the business of technology, but especially making sense of data analytics, where social is going next, and the collision between computer science and biological science. Prior to WIRED he was a senior writer at Fortune Magazine covering everything from electric cars to genomics and the latest in jet-powered surfboards.

Read more by Michael V. Copeland

Follow @MVC on Twitter.



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U2′s Bono to urge U.S. politicians not to cut aid programs
















WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.


The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.













Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.


Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.


During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.


Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.


The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.


On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.


(Editing by W Simon)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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‘Dream Team’ of Behavioral Scientists Advised Obama Campaign


Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session.


“He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ” recalled Dr. Fox, a behavioral economist at the University of California, Los Angeles.


So began an effort by a team of social scientists to help their favored candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Some members of the team had consulted with the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle, but the meeting in January signaled a different direction.


“The culture of the campaign had changed,” Dr. Fox said. “Before then I felt like we had to sell ourselves; this time there was a real hunger for our ideas.”


This election season the Obama campaign won a reputation for drawing on the tools of social science. The book “Victory Lab,” by Sasha Issenberg, and news reports have portrayed an operation that ran its own experiment and, among other efforts, consulted with the Analyst Institute, a Washington voter research group established in 2007 by union officials and their allies to help Democratic candidates.


Less well known is that the Obama campaign also had a panel of unpaid academic advisers. The group — which calls itself the “consortium of behavioral scientists,” or COBS — provided ideas on how to counter false rumors, like one that President Obama is a Muslim. It suggested how to characterize the Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in advertisements. It also delivered research-based advice on how to mobilize voters.


“In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,” said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. “It’s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.”


When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. “This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. “Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.”


For their part, consortium members said they did nothing more than pass on research-based ideas, in e-mails and conference calls. They said they could talk only in general terms about the research, because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign.


In addition to Dr. Fox, the consortium included Susan T. Fiske of Princeton University; Samuel L. Popkin of the University of California, San Diego; Robert Cialdini, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University; Richard H. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago’s business school; and Michael Morris, a psychologist at Columbia.


“A kind of dream team, in my opinion,” Dr. Fox said.


He said that the ideas the team proposed were “little things that can make a difference” in people’s behavior.


For example, Dr. Fiske’s research has shown that when deciding on a candidate, people generally focus on two elements: competence and warmth. “A candidate wants to make sure to score high on both dimensions,” Dr. Fiske said in an interview. “You can’t just run on the idea that everyone wants to have a beer with you; some people care a whole lot about competence.”


Mr. Romney was recognized as a competent businessman, polling found. But he was often portrayed in opposition ads as distant, unable to relate to the problems of ordinary people.


When it comes to countering rumors, psychologists have found that the best strategy is not to deny the charge (“I am not a flip-flopper”) but to affirm a competing notion. “The denial works in the short term; but in the long term people remember only the association, like ‘Obama and Muslim,’ ” said Dr. Fox, of the persistent false rumor.


The president’s team affirmed that he is a Christian.


At least some of the consortium’s proposals seemed to have found their way into daily operations. Campaign volunteers who knocked on doors last week in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada did not merely remind people to vote and arrange for rides to the polls. Rather, they worked from a script, using subtle motivational techniques that research has shown can prompt people to take action.


“We used the scripts more as a guide,” said Sarah Weinstein, 18, a Columbia freshman who traveled with a group to Cleveland the weekend before the election. “The actual language we used was invested in the individual person.”


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False Posts on Facebook Undermine Its Credibility





SAN FRANCISCO — The Facebook page for Gaston Memorial Hospital, in Gastonia, N.C., offers a chicken salad recipe to encourage healthy eating, tips on avoiding injuries at Zumba class, and pictures of staff members dressed up at Halloween. Typical stuff for a hospital in a small town.




But in October, another Facebook page for the hospital popped up. This one posted denunciations of President Obama and what it derided as “Obamacare.” It swiftly gathered hundreds of followers, and the anti-Obama screeds picked up “likes.” Officials at the hospital, scrambling to get it taken down, turned to their real Facebook page for damage control. “We apologize for any confusion,” they posted on Oct. 8, “and appreciate the support of our followers.”


The fake page came down 11 days later, as mysteriously as it had come up. The hospital says it has no clue who was behind it.


Fakery is all over the Internet. Twitter, which allows pseudonyms, is rife with fake followers, and has been used to spread false rumors, as it was during Hurricane Sandy. False reviews are a constant problem on consumer Web sites.


Gaston Memorial’s experience is an object lesson in the problem of fakery on Facebook. For the world’s largest social network, it is an especially acute problem, because it calls into question its basic premise. Facebook has sought to distinguish itself as a place for real identity on the Web. As the company tells its users: “Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.” It goes on to advise: “The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, student ID, etc.”


Fraudulent “likes” damage the trust of advertisers, who want clicks from real people they can sell to and whom Facebook now relies on to make money. Fakery also can ruin the credibility of search results for the social search engine that Facebook says it is building.


Facebook says it has always taken the problem seriously, and recently stepped up efforts to cull fakes from the site. “It’s pretty much one of the top priorities for the company all the time,” said Joe Sullivan, who is in charge of security at Facebook.


The fakery problem on Facebook comes in many shapes. False profiles are fairly easy to create; hundreds can pop up simultaneously, sometimes with the help of robots, and often they persuade real users into friending them in a bid to spread malware. Fake Facebook friends and likes are sold on the Web like trinkets at a bazaar, directed at those who want to enhance their image. Fake coupons for meals and gadgets can appear on Facebook newsfeeds, aimed at tricking the unwitting into revealing their personal information.


Somewhat more benignly, some college students use fake names in an effort to protect their Facebook content from the eyes of future employers.


Mr. Sullivan declined to say what portion of the company’s now one billion plus users were fake. The company quantified the problem last June, in responding to an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. At that time, the company said that of its 855 million active users, 8.7 percent, or 83 million, were duplicates, false or “undesirable,” for instance, because they spread spam.


Mr. Sullivan said that since August, the company had put in place a new automated system to purge fake “likes.” The company said it has 150 to 300 staff members to weed out fraud.


Flags are raised if a user sends out hundreds of friend requests at a time, Mr. Sullivan explained, or likes hundreds of pages simultaneously, or most obvious of all, posts a link to a site that is known to contain a virus. Those suspected of being fakes are warned. Depending on what they do on the site, accounts can be suspended.


In October, Facebook announced new partnerships with antivirus companies. Facebook users can now download free or paid antivirus coverage to guard against malware.


“It’s something we have been pretty effective at all along,” Mr. Sullivan said.


Facebook’s new aggressiveness toward fake “likes” became noticeable in September, when brand pages started seeing their fan numbers dip noticeably. An average brand page, Facebook said at the time, would lose less than 1 percent of its fans.


But the thriving market for fakery makes it hard to keep up with the problem. Gaston Memorial, for instance, first detected a fake page in its name in August; three days later, it vanished. The fake page popped up again on Oct. 4, and this time filled up quickly with the loud denunciations of the Obama administration. Dallas P. Wilborn, the hospital’s public relations manager, said her office tried to leave a voice-mail message for Facebook but was disconnected; an e-mail response from the social network ruled that the fake page did not violate its terms of service. The hospital submitted more evidence, saying that the impostor was using its company logo.


Eleven days later, the hospital said, Facebook found in its favor. But by then, the local newspaper, The Gaston Gazette, had written about the matter, and the fake page had disappeared.


Facebook declined to comment on the incident, and pointed only to its general Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.


The election season seems to have increased the fakery.


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Actor Robert Taylor's former ranch is set to go on auction block









As a celluloid heartthrob, Robert Taylor donned western boots and jeans to portray a gunslinger in "Billy the Kid" and a lawman in "The Hangman." He dressed the same off-screen to ride horses on his 112-acre ranch in Mandeville Canyon.

Taylor died in 1969, but the Brentwood ranch, with its 12-bedroom house, guest quarters, rolling lawns and wooded hillsides, still bears his name. The estate, extensively remodeled in the 1980s by a rock-radio mogul who turned the stables into offices and apartments while leaving the horseshoe-studded stall doors intact, is slated to be sold at auction Nov. 30.

A number of parties have toured the Robert Taylor Ranch, one of the largest residential properties on the Westside and recently listed by Hilton & Hyland at just under $19 million. Among those expressing interest have been "royals from the Middle East," according to Aaron Kirman, a Hilton & Hyland agent working with Concierge Auctions of New York.





PHOTOS: Robert Taylor ranch

Each potential bidder who has seen the property has had a different vision, it seems. "A few love it the way it is," said Marcie Hartley, also with Hilton & Hyland. "Others want to tear it down and start over." A few, she said, view the eight parcels as ripe for subdivision and development.

That prospect rattles neighbors in the hillside zone, which is prone to floods and mudslides. During big storms, mud, debris and torrents of water gush off the hillsides. Residents argue that developing the ranch further could heighten risks to those downstream.

In 1969, heavy rain turned Mandeville Canyon Road into an impassable river; a massive mudslide trapped film director Robert Altman in his home and killed Michael Riordan, brother of former Mayor Richard J. Riordan. In January 2005, runoff during a severe storm "was like a rushing river pushing through the ranch's brick and fence frontage onto Mandeville Canyon Road," said Wendy-Sue Rosen, former president of the Upper Mandeville Canyon Assn.

Fires are also a threat. In November 1961, Taylor and his family fled when the devastating Bel-Air/Brentwood wildfire threatened the property. Two cowboys evacuated the family's 11 horses. "I grabbed my passport and shaving kit," Taylor said at the time. "We drove to Ronnie Reagan's house." The ranch survived unscathed.

Listed over the years for as much as $65 million, the property will sell Nov. 30 to the highest bidder —"without reserve," in auction parlance. The auction will take place on the grounds; pounding the gavel will be auctioneer Frank Trunzo of Tampa, Fla.

The existing structures, white with green trim, were built in 1950 for Waite Phillips, an American petroleum executive. The architect was Robert Byrd, who designed tract and custom houses and "was definitely known for ranch style," said Alan Hess, author of "Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living."

In the 1970s, Ken Roberts, founder of Los Angeles radio station KROQ, bought and remodeled the property into what he termed the "ultimate estate." The property became known for parties and the occasional fundraiser for Bill Clinton.

Roberts put it on the market in 1990, for $45 million, then $35 million, but no serious buyers emerged. Roberts later took a short-term, high-interest loan from New Stream Capital, a Connecticut hedge fund. In 2010, when Roberts could not repay New Stream a court-ordered $27.5 million, the fund seized the ranch.

New Stream had its own troubles. One of its executives was arrested in 2010 after police said they found 203 marijuana plants in her home, and the fund filed for bankruptcy protection the next year. The ranch is now owned by a trust.

The Western-inspired, 11,700-square-foot house on the property has 34 rooms, including a bar and casino room with spinning, colored lights. The plumbing needs work. The compound includes a pool, a faded tennis court and the stables-turned-living quarters and offices. The structures take up just seven acres of the rugged hillside property.

Although some stables remain, the key reminder of the property's equestrian past is a fake, life-size horse on the front lawn.

"We really need to get it to the next owner who will live there and enjoy it and bring the property back," said Laura Brady, president of Concierge Auctions.

martha.groves@latimes.com





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